Cortese heads up final Moto3™ practice

Sandro Cortese was the quickest rider in the third and final practice at the Commercialbank Grand Prix of Qatar, with Romano Fenati and Luis Salom completing the top three. The German was unable to better Maverick Viñales' FP2 time however which remains the fastest so far, as the Spaniard placed fourth in the last session.

Sandro Cortese (Red Bull KTM Ajo) was the fastest rider in the third and final practice in Qatar on Friday, as the Moto3™ class ran its final preparations before Saturday's qualifying session. The German rider posted a best time of 2'08.342 to top the timesheet in the 40-minute run, and then pulled off a great save at the end to avoid tarnishing his session with a late crash.

Despite being the best of the session Cortese's time was still not the fastest of the three practices combined. That lap remained Maverick Viñales' (Blusens Avintia) effort from FP2 (2'08.160) which the young Spaniard set on Thursday.

Second to Cortese in FP3 was Italian rookie Romano Fenati (Team Italia FMI), who continued to generate excitement about his World Championship debut with a lap of 2'08.376, just 0.034s off top spot. Luis Salom (RW Racing GP)
completed the top three at a tenth-of-a-second off Cortese, with Viñales fourth in the final session and just 0.135s off P1.

Miguel Oliveira (Estrella Galicia 0'0), Danny Kent (Red Bull KTM Ajo)
and Alex Rins (Estrella Galicia 0'0)
were the final three riders within a second of the top time in the practice, and Héctor Faubel (Bankia Aspar Team), Alexis Masbou (Caretta Technology)
and another newcomer Niccolò Antonelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini Moto3)
completed the top 10.

Louis Rossi (Racing Team Germany)
and Zulfahmi Khairuddin (Airasia-SIC-Ajo) occupied 11th and 12th positions respectively, and both ended the session with crashes. Jonas Folger's (Iodaracing Project) problematic weekend continued as he encountered further technical issues during the session.

The Moto3 riders will be back on track on Saturday at 6pm local time for qualifying.